The Mill Creek Park plan offers a new trail system and
public garden, but says good-bye to the ducks and a popular bridge.
“There are a lot of nice things there in the
park, but not all of them are in the most appropriate places and sometimes
things get in the way of other things,” explained City Councilor Tom Coward, at
a recent presentation of the final plan that will go out to bid next month.
“This plan sorts all of these things out,” said
Coward. “What I particularly like is that it brings into the park the areas
along Broadway that are currently cut off, just because of function and flow.
When this work is done, I think the park will look a lot bigger than it does
now.”
But redevelopment project brings change, and
change can mean losses as well as additions. Two things that are not in the
long-term future of Mill Creek Park – the bridge that for more than a
quarter century spanned the middle section of the hourglass-shaped pond, and
the ducks.
The bridge, built by the public works
department, was taken out two years ago because of age and structure concerns,
just as the master plan process got under way. Councilor Maxine Beecher says
she made a promise to her constituents to fight for the bridge’s eventual
return.
“That [bridge] is still very much in the heart
of the people of this city,” she said, noting its attraction for summer wedding
photos, among other things.
But City Manager Jim Gailey says Beecher may not
be able to keep her promise.
“It’s a tricky subject at this point and one
that I don’t think most people fully understand,” he said.
The problem, Gailey said, is that as a public
project, any new bridge would have to meet modern ADA (Americans with
Disabilities Act) mandates. That means a slope much shallower than the old
bridge, which, with seven steps on either side, was inaccessible to most handicapped
people. To meet the 1:12 slope requirements of ADA, the bridge would either
have to be excessively long, or have numerous unsightly “kickbacks.” On the
other hand, making the bridge a reasonable length would put it low enough to
the water’s surface that people would not be able to skate beneath it in the
winter, effectively creating two rinks instead of one.
“The overall master plan does include plans for
a new bridge,” said landscape architect Regina Leonard, hired both to create
and oversee implementation of the plan, along with Sebego Technics of Westbrook
and Al Hodson Resurgence Engineering of Portland. “There’s no way that we can
replicate it and still have a bridge that everyone can access. For that reason, it’s not a high priority.”
Meanwhile, the other park feature “very much in
the heart of this city” – the ducks – have proven to be too much of a good
thing. Over the years, they’ve overrun the 10-acre park, creating as much
genuine panic as postcard moments for some park patrons.
“The ducks are doing more bad than good in the
park,” said Gailey. “It’s kind of a hot potato, and one that we really haven’t
tackled too much.”
Signs were put up last year asking people not to
feed the ducks, in hopes they might seek out other, easier sources of
sustenance. They didn’t help.
“We haven’t stepped up any kind of enforcement
because we really haven’t developed a game plan,” says Gailey. “This is bigger
than just moving the ducks. It’s not as easy as putting some signs up and
asking police to write summons if people start to feed the ducks.
“The ducks are a conversation people seem just
now willing to be able to have,” said Leonard. “For a long time, it was a
subject people were unwilling to touch.”
But with ducks and bridges out, what’s in? Leonard
says the first phase, scheduled for completion before this year’s Art in the
Park festival, is a system of stone-dust trails surrounding the pond and
providing access to the new gazebo installed 18 months ago.
“We don’t want to overwhelm the park with a
trail system, but our goal is to better integrate all of the area of the park
into a single experience,” said Leonard, noting that trails also will be built
to the new military service memorial near Broadway, in what is to be called
Veterans’ Green, where landscaping improvements will be made.
“Part of the challenge when we were creating the
plans is that the park really feels like three separate areas,” said Leonard.
The new trail system will provide direct access
to the pond from Broadway, Ocean Street and Hinckley Street.
A stone retaining wall will shore up the pond’s
edge by the gazebo, while new stone pads and benches will be put in at the area
known as Mill Stone Plaza, along Ocean Street.
“We hope to create a more urban space with
improved access and long, linear views across the pond,” Leonard said.
Future projects include installation of a
wrought iron gate at the corner of Broadway and Ocean, leading into a public
garden, which, says Leonard, will be the rose garden relocated and “reimagined”
with a “sustainable variety of ornamental perennials.”
This, Leonard says, will create a “visual
gateway” into the park and a new arboretum that will be part of a later stage
of development.
The Mill Creak overhaul will take place in the
course of several years, dependant largely on federal funding. Gailey says all
of the work will be done using community development block grants, with no
direct taxpayer input. Although much depends on how the plan plays out, and
support from the community, the expectation now, says Leonard, is a tally of
between $400,000 and $500,000 when everything is done.
“This is a true community park,” says Leonard.
“We want to make it even more inviting to everyone.”
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